Read Story: SEASON 1 EPISODE 90
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Creston – Curtis’s Residence
Curtis’s driver pulled up the long, secluded drive toward his estate, deep at the city’s edge where the trees grew thick enough to swallow the road from view.
The house wasn’t there.
Not fully. What remained was a blackened, smoking shell, walls collapsed inward, the roof entirely gone, still faintly smoldering in places despite what looked like it had happened hours ago.
Curtis stumbled out of the car and fell to his knees in the ash-covered driveway, a broken, guttural sound tearing out of him.
Everything, he thought, staring at the wreckage. Everything I had. I never trusted banks. I kept it all here.
His entire fortune — cash, records, everything he’d built over decades — reduced to ash and smoke in front of him.
His phone buzzed.
Wife: Like the gift? That’s what you get for having a daughter without telling me. She’s dead, though, and I hope she rests in pieces.
Curtis stared at the screen, the words slamming into him with sickening clarity. His wife. The one who traveled constantly, the one he’d almost forgotten existed in the chaos of the past month.
She knew, he thought numbly. She’s known this whole time.
Memory surfaced unbidden — a night, years ago, another woman, another betrayal he’d inflicted without a second thought, the particular cruelty he’d shown someone who’d trusted him.
I’ve done this to someone before, he realized, the horror of it compounding with everything else. This is what it feels like on the other side.
His phone buzzed again. His secretary this time.
A significant sum has been withdrawn from company accounts without authorization. We are currently insolvent. Creditors have been notified.
Curtis remained on his knees in the driveway, surrounded by the ruins of everything he’d built, sobbing until his throat gave out.
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Celeste’s Residence – The Next Morning
Celeste moved through the kitchen, gathering her things for the day’s opening at the restaurant, when her phone rang.
Mrs. Hale.
“Celeste!” The joy in her voice was audible even before she finished the sentence. “He’s awake. He’s actually awake!”
Celeste dropped the container she’d been holding, spice scattering across the counter, and pressed her free hand to her mouth.
“He’s awake,” she repeated, disbelief and pure joy tangling together. “Oh, thank God. Thank God, thank God—”
“Mama?” Luis appeared in the doorway, alarmed by her tone.
“He’s awake, baby!” Celeste turned to him, tears already streaming. “Duane’s awake!”
Luis crossed the kitchen in three quick strides and threw his arms around her, sobbing openly into her shoulder.
“I’m going to miss him,” he choked out, the relief and the ache of distance tangling together all at once. “I miss him so much already, Mama.”
“I know, baby,” Celeste murmured, holding him tight. “I know. But he’s alive. He’s alive, and that’s everything.”
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Bennett’s Mansion – Same Morning
The family gathered around the phone on speaker, Diana’s face bright with relief as Ivory’s voice came through from the other end.
“He’s eating a little now,” Ivory reported. “Not much, but it’s something.”
“Thank goodness,” Diana said. “My baby’s back.”
“MY baby,” Ivory corrected, laughing.
“Yes, well,” Arthur said dryly, “we’ll need to have a discussion at some point about when exactly your driver became your baby, but I suppose that conversation is overdue anyway.”
Ivory laughed. “At least I never have to worry about you setting me up on another disastrous blind date again, Dad.”
“I still say that Norman fellow was perfectly respectable,” Arthur muttered, and the whole room burst into laughter at the memory.
Hazel leaned toward the phone. “I used to see you sneaking into his room every night, you know. In that sinful little nightie.”
“HAZEL.”
The whole family dissolved into laughter, Ivory’s mortified protest barely audible over it.
“So that’s what’s been happening under my roof,” Arthur said, feigning outrage, though his eyes crinkled with amusement. “Right under my nose.”
“Dad!”
They laughed harder, the sound warm and easy, a family finally allowing themselves a full breath of relief after weeks of holding it.
—
Morales Mansion – Same Morning
Ron paced his study, agitation crawling under his skin with nowhere to go. Everything had gone wrong — the plan delayed, the ache in his chest worsening by the day, some formless dread building steadily that he couldn’t outrun no matter how hard he tried to focus on Ivory instead.
The pain struck again, harder this time, buckling his knees entirely.
He collapsed to the floor, gasping, and blood began trickling — from his nose first, then his mouth, then, horrifyingly, his ears.
“GRACE!” he tried to scream, though it came out weak, wet, barely a whisper.
Footsteps approached.
Grace stood in the doorway, looking down at him with an expression that held nothing resembling alarm.
She smiled.
“Good,” she said quietly, crossing her arms. “That’s exactly what you deserve. You’re going to rot, Ron. Slowly. Until your insides come out of your own body and maggots feed on what’s left.”
Ron stared up at her, disbelief and terror colliding through the pain. “Who—” he choked out. “Who are you?”
“My father worked in your office,” Grace said, voice flat and cold. “You killed him. Slammed his head into a wall until he stopped moving. Do you even remember his name?”
Ron’s blood-flecked mouth opened, but no answer came. He didn’t remember. He’d never bothered to know.
“I’m his daughter,” Grace said. “And I’ve been poisoning your food since the day I walked into this house.”
Ron spat blood, weaker now than he’d been seconds before, his whole body trembling.
Grace crouched down, spitting once, deliberately, directly onto him. “Rot,” she said, and stood, walking to the door.
She picked up his phone from the nightstand on her way out and dropped it directly into the toilet in the adjoining bathroom, flushing it without ceremony.
Then she left, locking the door behind her, and Ron lay alone on the floor of his own study, blood pooling slowly beneath him, utterly unable to call for help.
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